Navigating Pain and Understanding Analgesia- The RVN’s Role in Improving Patient Well-Being

Pain management is a vital part of the nurse’s role in practice and this course aims to provide nurses with the knowledge and skills to improve patient wellbeing and outcomes by supporting vets and patients alike.

Nurses can be hugely hands-on in this area by performing local anaesthesia techniques as well as supporting chronic pain sufferers with the use of adjunctive therapies.

Following a review on pain theory and physiology, nurses will be better able to recognise the signs of pain or look to avoid them completely using pre-emptive and multi-modal analgesia. Pain relief options for surgical procedures will be covered, providing nurses with a greater understanding of what and why the vets have prescribed certain analgesic options, and how to monitor patients following administration.

Topics to be covered include:

• The physiology of pain and classification of analgesics
• Pharmacology and common analgesia options for surgical procedures
• Local anaesthesia- case discussions and practical techniques
• Analgesia for chronic pain, including adjunctive therapies
• Pain scoring

N.B This course includes a cadaver-based practical session